Wesley Stace is a man with a dual creative personality. He earned an international following as a musician for his work under the stage name John Wesley Harding, while as Wesley Stace, he's published a handful of acclaimed novels, served as a reviewer for a number of respected newspapers and magazines, and also written and recorded music of his own. Stace's melodic sensibility is similar to Harding's, but his recordings reflect a more subtle and refined sound, less indebted to rock and having more in common with contemporary folk and adult alternative pop, as he takes a mature outlook on life and love. Stace stepped out under his own name on 2013's low-key Self-Titled, he collaborated with the Jayhawks for 2017's Wesley Stace's John Wesley Harding, and he dipped his toes into cool cocktail jazz on 2021's Late Style.

Wesley Stace was born in Hastings, East Sussex, England on October 22, 1965. In his teens, he learned to play guitar and became a devotee of singer/songwriters such as Phil Ochs, Loudon Wainwright III, John Prine, and particularly Bob Dylan, taking his stage name from the title of Dylan's celebrated 1967 release. Stace studied English literature and social and political science at Jesus College, Cambridge, but left before completing his PhD to pursue a career in music. As John Wesley Harding, he played the folk circuit in the U.K., and a spot opening for John Hiatt brought him to the attention of the British independent label Demon Records, which released his debut album, a 1988 live set titled It Happened One Night. Harding soon scored an American record deal with Sire, which released his first studio set, Here Comes the Groom, in 1990. Sire would release two more Harding albums, 1991's The Name Above the Title and 1992's Why We Fight, but despite critical praise and enthusiastic receptions for his live shows, the label was unable to break him to a larger audience (or shake frequent comparisons to Elvis Costello), and he returned to the independent label community with 1996's John Wesley Harding's New Deal. He continued to play live, and in 1995, when Bruce Springsteen played a series of solo acoustic shows at California's Berkeley Community Theater, he invited Harding to be his opening act, the first time Springsteen had used an opener in two decades.

In the 21st century, while John Wesley Harding continued to write and record, Stace returned to his interest in the written word. In 2005, he published his first novel, Misfortune, which earned enthusiastic reviews and was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post. By George, his second novel, was published in 2007, and Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer followed in 2010. As his recognition as a novelist began to rival that as a musician, Stace began contributing reviews and essays to The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Washington Post, as well as a number of leading music magazines and literary journals. At the same time, he began putting new focus on his musical career in 2009, releasing a new John Wesley Harding album, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, and launching a series of variety performances, John Wesley Harding's Cabinet of Wonders, in which he shared the stage with a revolving cast of musicians, comedians, and spoken word performers. In 2011, there was a new John Wesley Harding album, The Sound of His Own Voice, while in 2013, Stace announced that he planned to release his future recordings as Wesley Stace, beginning with the album he brought out that year, Self-Titled. In 2014, Stace published his fourth novel, Wonderkid, and in 2017, he struck a compromise between his two public personae with the release of the album Wesley Stace's John Wesley Harding, a collaboration with alt-country heroes the Jayhawks. Stace reverted to his John Wesley Harding persona to release the 2018 compilation Greatest Other People's Hits, which brought together covers he had recorded throughout his career. Stace was able to combine his talent for prose with his love of classic singer/songwriters when he penned the liner notes for the 2019 Bob Dylan collection The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings. For 2021's Late Style, Stace experimented with production and arrangements informed by cocktail jazz and the cool pop sounds of the 1950s and early '60s. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi